|
|
Our NewsletterIssue No. 33: How Much Do We Spend on Pharmaceuticals?
Research Clarifies Answer to Complex Question Discussions of pharmaceutical spending are complicated and obscured by a lack of consensus of precisely how the totals are derived. By using different components, you can come up with totals that vary by as much as $150 billion a year. It is hard to have policy debates when basic assumptions differ so much. An article in Health Affairs on July 31 attempts to demystify the subject and, with thorough research, comes up with its own, understandable aggregate figures. The article -- titled “Spending on Prescription Drugs in the US: Where Does All the Money Go?” – was the work of Nancy L. Yu, Preston Atteberry, and Peter Bach, all of Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Center for Health Policy and Outcomes (of which Bach is director). In February, the Pew Charitable Trustsalso did an analysis of various sources of pharmaceutical cost totals, but did not posit an estimate of its own. Read more here |
What Others Are Saying"The anger directed at the pharmaceutical and biotech industries overall is misdirected. The single biggest driving force for increased health-care spending in the U.S. is the rising cost of labor, not drugs." "Even if pharmaceutical spending were rising as a share of total health care spending, but that rise was due to pharmaceutical investments driving down expenditures in other health care areas (e.g. a reduced need for more expensive surgeries), then it would still be inaccurate to argue that pharmaceutical spending is driving overall health care inflation." |
Newsletter Archive
Proudly powered by Weebly